So there's a reading gadget and a reading gadget with Angry Birds Star Wars. Which do you pick? Well, you, cultured person that you are, would select the dedicated e-reader, of course, just like you would rather watch Frontline instead of Honey Boo Boo, or pick up Vanity Fair instead of Us Weekly on the checkout line. Or at least that's what the ideal version of yourself would do. But as Amazon and Barnes & Noble are quickly discovering this year, the highbrow ideal all too often gives way to the mass-market realities. Sales of the Kindle and especially the Nook fell this holiday season, despite lower prices than more fully functioning tablets, which are distinctly on the rise. And market researchers estimate that these divergent paths will continue — The Wall Street Journal reports that e-readers sales will be cut in half, from 14.9 million per year to just 7.8 million, by 2015. But the death of the e-reader has less to do with the iPad than what's inside of it: from tablets to TV shows and everything in between, the most high-minded of ideas for cultural consumption always seem to devolve toward mindless entertainment.

So there you have it. The decline of ereader sales is due to the fact that we prefer "mindless entertainment" over "cultural consumption"

well I actually bought both an e-reader (Nook with glow) for my girlfriend, and a 7" tablet for me,

my plans are with the tablet to use it as a reader, (and I do) but the best benefit is that is allows me to use all 3, major reader stores...Kindle, Sony (my favorite store) and Nook

so my selection is not limited to just 1 manufacturer

I can also use it in my cars dash to listen to music...an e-ink reader can't do those things, if they made them compatible with all stores, they will sell much better, I know the goal is to get ALL the business, but some is better than none

she can't read long with LED/LCD screens, I have no problem with them at all...even for LONG periods

The reason why e-reader sale is going down is probably more related to saturation of a market then with mindless entertainment. Besides dedicated e-ink readers are not even capable of supporting Angry Birds lol
I have Kindle3 keyboard and I have no intention of buying Kindle paperwhite or Kindle fire. I will use it as long as it serves me and its serves me good so far

People of course are more inclined to replace tablets, ipad, iphones and so on, then e-ink readers. But then again, those things are not there for reading primarily.
That's why tablets sales are rising, e-reader's sales is dropping. You dont get much more changing e-ink reader every year. (Same goes for tablets/phones, but that's just my opinion, a lot of people don't agree with me and buy them anyway)

What Amazon should do is lower ebook prices and increase their sales that way. What Barnes and Nobles should do is sell internationally and increase their sales that way.

There is no point in coming up with new e-readers every year. They are emulating apple way too much, and nobody looks at replacing kindle4 to kindle paperwhite in quite the same way as replacing their iphone4 to iphone5. I think both is silly way to spend your money, but most of the people these days just dont care

An immediate issue with this op-ed is that it engages in shell games with quantities. Starting from a baseline of zero a new technology will undergo incredible rates of initial growth in adoption. But this will level off rather quickly. A 34% rate is still indeed healthy, and a sign I think that the explosive phase is giving way to robust and expansionary growth as the market slouches toward maturation.

Unfortunately the trend that companies want to see now is to have consumers upgrade their gadgets yearly. Some blindly update even though there's no benefit just to have the newest toy available. But I'll hang onto my PRS-350s until they all die, or I die, whichever comes first . I plan on replacing batteries when they need it to prolong their life too.